


Instant Person: Just Add Coffee

by LayALioness



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: pointless superhero shenannigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 09:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8974180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: In Clint’s incredibly varied experience, missing the sacred morning cup of coffee is a sign that everything else about his day is going to go south, too. And while he’s been wrong about many many many things, he’s never been wrong about this one. The answer always lies in the coffee.So when he rolls out of couch (he fell asleep watching SVU reruns again, by accident) that morning and stumbles his way into the kitchen (only tripping over the dog once along the way) only to discover he’s out of coffee, he just stares at the empty pot like it’s a fucked up horoscope: today will be shit and you should just go back to bed.





	

In Clint’s incredibly varied experience, missing the sacred morning cup of coffee is a sign that everything else about his day is going to go south, too. And while he’s been wrong about  _many many many_ things, he’s never been wrong about this one. The answer always lies in the coffee.

So when he rolls out of couch (he fell asleep watching SVU reruns again, by accident) that morning and stumbles his way into the kitchen (only tripping over the dog once along the way) only to discover he’s out of coffee, he just stares at the empty pot like it’s a fucked up horoscope: _today will be shit and you should just go back to bed._

He’s even out of instant, which is like salt in the wound. He’s _never_  out of instant, not since Kate started showing up with styrofoam cups of the stuff she gets specially ground at some cafe. Clint isn’t really sure how she can always afford the expensive shit, especially since her dad cut her off. She’s always scraping rent together at the end of the month, but when it comes to coffee, it seems she can always afford to splurge. She should really look into buffing up her financing skills, but Clint won’t be the one to tell her, because Clint doesn’t like being a hypocrite.

He’s still staring at the carafe like it might magically fill itself, when Kate lets herself into his apartment. He gave her a key after the third night she had to drag him home unconscious. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Good morning, Hawkeye,” she chirps, sipping cheerily from her own travel cup. Clint can smell it from here– _dark roast_ –and the scent makes him _ache_. He’s never ached for anyone like he aches for caffeine. This is why his wife left him, probably. Well, that and the fact that she dropped a man off a cliff and was abducted by aliens. It’s hard to come back from that.

“What’s good about it, Hawkeye?” Clint grumbles miserably. He’s not sure when he last showered, is undressed and unshaved, with bruises and scrapes dotting every inch of skin on display. But Kate’s seen him look worse, and it’s not like she’s runway-ready, in yesterday’s jeans and a pair of big cheap sunglasses to hide the black eye.

“Who pissed in your cereal?” Kate asks, finally honing in on him glaring at the pot. “Or coffee, I guess.”

“I’m out,” he grunts, and shuffles into the belly of his apartment in search of a shirt that isn’t more hole than cotton. 

“What, like, _out_ -out?” Kate calls, more surprised than she was when she found out he was still alive. He guesses he shouldn’t really be surprised. Clint and coffee are sort of like a package deal. Without coffee, there is no Hawkeye, and if there’s coffee, at least _one_  Hawkeye is generally nearby. 

“It’s fine,” Clint shrugs on some old t-shirt he swiped from a shabby gym in Hell’s Kitchen (he’d let Matt goad him into a one-on-one sparring session and while he’ll never go into detail about what happened, suffice it to say that he will _never_  agree to a rematch. For a _supposedly_  blind guy, Murdock has a mean right hook). “Tony’s always got the Tower stocked with fresh stuff. I’ll just get my fix there.”

“You sound like a junkie,” Kate points out. Clint just shrugs, because it’s fair. She leans down to give Lucky a proper goodbye, and then they’re out the door.

Clint doesn’t actually _like_  visiting Avengers Tower, not since the team break-up. He’s got more good memories of the place than bad, but there’s something about _friend_  break-ups that are just generally a lot shittier than relationships. And as someone whose had a lot of both, and a divorce under his belt, Clint can say that with some expertise. Whenever he starts dating someone–or marries them–Clint still has a level of _expectation_ , that it will eventually end and they’ll go their separate ways. It just seems inevitable. People aren’t built to stick together for long, or at least he isn’t.

Looking back on it, that might be the reason why he and Bobbi didn’t work out. But he’s still gonna blame aliens. It’s just easier, in the long run. 

But no matter how much the Tower puts him on edge these days, Jarvis always keeps the place stocked with whatever–and he really does mean _whatever_ –the team wants. Fresh-baked paninis from that little bistro in Paris that Nat likes so much? Done. Coconut water imported in from the Philippines for Sam’s newest cleanse? In bulk. The pumpkin-apple mead made in Connecticut that Thor’s so partial to? Always waiting on the third shelf, and the God is only here _part time_. Sometimes Tony throws in a few curve-balls too, just for shits and giggles, like that time when the fridge was filled with sturgeon eggs for no apparent reason.

Plus, Steve likes to keep a healthy dose of coffee on hand at all times, because America and patriotism, or whatever. Clint doesn’t really care about the _why_ , as long as he gets to drink it.

Also, it’s free. As a bonus.

The Hawkeyes share a cab to Manhattan because it’s cheaper and because, Clint suspects, they both sort of miss each other when they aren’t spending all their days side by side, kicking down doors and just generally giving bad guys a pretty hard time. It’s been a slow few weeks, leading into Labor Day, with most of the usual suspects laying low. Clint almost wishes the mafia would pop up again; he could use a good explosion. He’s starting to feel rusty, which means he’s starting to feel his real age.

This is why he needs coffee. Steve has his super serum, Thor has his godliness, Tony has his robots, Nat has good genetics, and Clint has coffee. 

“Training today?” Kate suggests, finishing her own morning kick-start, tipping her head all the way back to catch every drop. Clint tries to not seem bitter about it.

“If I can find the time,” he says, and they both smile at the joke. Time is all they seem to have, lately. Time and nothing to fill it up with, which is a little unnerving on its own, because if the universe is letting them rest up it means it’s going to hit them hard and soon. Historically speaking, anyway.

The cabbie drops him off first, two blocks from the tower, because the Bishop Publishing warehouse is down by the docks, while Avengers Tower lives right in the heart of the business district. They’ve never been known for subtlety. 

He tosses a few crumpled bills at the driver–and then a few more because Kate’s a cheapskate. “You owe me lunch,” he grumbles, and she smacks a sloppy kiss to his cheek with a grin.

“You’re a bleeding heart, Clint.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I want something _fancy_ this afternoon.”

“You mean like falafels?”

“ _Fancy_  falafels. With Dijon ketchup.”

Clint slips into the Tower through the back door (old habits die hard) and makes it into the kitchen without having to stop and make small talk with any of the other superheroes. He doesn’t _dislike_  hearing what’s going on with them, but he does hate small talk, just on principle. He’s not good at it, which personally offends him. 

He lets out a sigh of relief when he sees the bag of Kona shipped from Hawaii and practically waiting for him in the cupboard, but he hits a snag when he goes to fetch his mug from the communal mug shelf.

It isn’t there.

Playing house (or at least group lounge) for (roughly) ten people means that they wrack up a pretty heavy dish count. Most people don’t care when it comes to things like plates and soup bowls, but everyone wants to use their own coffee mugs, and Clint is no exception.

His shirt is a hand-me-down from Daredevil and he’s pretty sure the underwear he has on were once Tony’s, since they feel expensive and tight. The line has to be drawn somewhere, okay?

Clint’s particular mug is a shade somewhere between blue and purple, his favorite color, with THE COOL ONE in big black letters across the front. It’s a little chipped around the rim, and extremely juvenile, and he bought it for three dollars at a Wallgreen’s. Clint is very attached to that mug.

Among the rest of the collection is Steve’s plain “World’s Best Dad” mug, a gag gift from the team Secret Santa two years ago; Wanda’s weird stained glass mosaic mug that could double as a cereal bowl; Sam’s navy-colored mug with a bird silhouette in silver (it’s unclear if Sam owned the thing before he became the Falcon or if he bought it after); Bruce’s mug, with the picture of some chemical equation that Clint is sure must double as a pun; and Tony’s self-egregious “Stark Industries” mug. There’s also a #1 SUPERHERO mug floating around somewhere, which Clint suspects was Tony’s to begin with, but gets used by the rest of them fairly equally. It’s like a contest of sorts, to see who gets it for the day. 

But for once Clint isn’t interested in the #1 SUPERHERO mug. He wants _his_  mug, and his mug is missing. His first thought is Nat, because she has a thing with using other people’s shit since she refuses to ever get her own, either out of general laziness or a very deep-seated need to not form attachments, even to inanimate objects. It’s a toss-up, really. He knows she had a cat once, named Sasha. He also knows that cat went missing after just one week, and he doesn’t know where or why. He doesn’t want to ask.

After a few moments of fruitlessly searching each cupboard, the dishwasher, the second dishwasher, the pantry, and then the cupboards again, Clint resigns himself to the communal SUPERHERO mug. That’s when he reaches his second snag.

The coffee maker is gone.

Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, seeing as Tony likes to cover all his bases and as such keeps a minimum of two coffee makers, a Keurig, an espresso machine, and two French presses. If New York City ever finds itself with a shortage of ways to make coffee, the Tower would be a veritable bunker. Admittedly, it is a veritable bunker in a lot of other ways too.

But not only are both coffee makers missing, so are the rest of the stockpile. Even the French presses, which seems weird. Well, weirder than usual. It’s hard to find something _weird_  when random fridge full of  sturgeon eggs and alien invasion set the standard.

This isn’t Clint’s first rodeo, though, and just like every other time that something about the Tower has thrown him for a loop, he follows the trail of gizmos and gadgets until he finds Tony in the lounge, surrounded by the innards of what must be every kitchen appliance he owns, and a few that might be stolen.

Even the _French presses_ , which just seems wildly unfair. Those aren’t even electrical. 

“Tony,” Clint says, eyeing the mess of wires and sparks in front of him. Tony is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor with the machines stretched out around him like a spider web of technology. Tony grunts in acknowledgement, but doesn’t look up. “What are you doing?”

“Saving the world,” Tony says, predictably, because that’s his go-to response for most things. Clint isn’t even sure why he asked; Tony would say the same thing if he was reading a Home and Lifestyle magazine on the toilet.

He shuffles back to the kitchen, empty mug in hand and useless, to find Steve making what looks like a pie crust on the counter. He likes to stress-bake, when he feels like he isn’t sacrificing himself, or something. Which is fine by Clint, because it means he gets to stuff his face with pastries, and Steve gets to feel productive. It’s a win-win.

But being caught looking dismal by Steve Rogers is a lose-lose, because Captain America doesn’t know how to _not_  get concerned about anything. He catches _ants_  on little slips of paper so he can carry them outside.

“Why the long face, Clint?”

“Tony disemboweled all the coffee makers. Do you guys have any instant?”

Steve frowns, considering the issue at hand, trying to come up with a strategic solution. “I don’t think so.”

Clint sighs; he’d expected as much, but that doesn’t make it less disappointing. “You have an endless supply of beluga whale eggs for two weeks, but not instant coffee.”

Steve looks incredibly ashamed, like he does whenever he isn’t sure how to fix a problem. “We have Kona,” he offers, and for a just one second Clint considers if he’s desperate enough to stuff his mouth with unfiltered coffee grounds, and just hope for the best. It can be like a challenge; see how long he can dry-swallow without throwing up.

“Nah,” he shakes his head, placing the mug back in its place of honor. He doesn’t miss the hungry look in Steve’s eye when he sees it. “I think I’ll just go check out the kids’ stash. See you later.”

“I think Tony wants to call a meeting sometime this week,” Steve tells him. “I’ll let you know when.”

Of course Tony wants to call a meeting. Tony likes to call meetings to plan out other, more important meetings, and then end the whole thing with a pool party, complete with jello shots off of models. It’s like working for a billionaire that’s trying to seem cool while going through a mild (or extreme, depending on your Crazy Ass Shit meter) midlife crisis, which is _exactly_  what it is.

“I’ll probably be sick that day,” Clint says, even though they both know he’ll show up. Probably at the last minute, and covered in blood, but they know what they’re getting into when they invite him to things. They keep inviting him anyway. Sometimes he feels like the neighborhood stray that they haven’t gotten sick of yet.

That’s one of the reasons why he took the teaching gig at the warehouse in the first place. The kids needed a person to teach them, and Clint needed something to fill his afternoons, besides day-drinking cheap scotch and marathoning Wheel of Fortune. 

Also, Kate Bishop fell into his life like a meteor and challenged him to a shoot-off with his own bow. He won (obviously) but it was a close call; too close for comfort, and it was the realization that he needed, to get up off his ass and _do_  something. He didn’t want to be that dried-up has-been dying slowly on his shitty couch, while a bunch of kids who grew up hearing stories about _Hawkeye and the Avengers!_  wanted to be like him. At a certain point, teen idolization just feels creepy.

Bishop Publishing has been out of business for years, but business for the Young Avengers has been booming, and Clint likes to think he’s played a part in that. 

Plus, they’re always happy to see him. It’s a little bit like how he imagines having kids of his own might feel. Except at the end of the day he doesn’t have to pay their orthodontist bills or be held responsible for any of their shitty decisions. 

He still hates the warehouse–they call it The Clubhouse, which he stubbornly refuses to do. It’s a _warehouse_ , surrounded by a bunch of other warehouses, in a manufacturing district that went under. The only security system they have is a screeching metal door, which always fucks with his hearing aid, and there’s only one window, which means they’re all probably Vitamin A deficient. Plus there’s never any food in the fridge that isn’t half-eaten takeout and week-old Kraft mac and cheese that isn’t even stored in a tupperware. They just put the pot in the fridge, with the noodles caked to it, like a bunch of _animals_.

Which isn’t his problem, obviously. They’re old enough to make their own decisions. They’re even mostly independent, no longer sending Steve a bunch of i-messages before every move they make. For a while there, it felt like he wrote a Dear Abby column for superheroes. 

And if he’s being honest, Clint feels a lot more at home in the warehouse than he does in the Tower. The Tower is all latest-and-greatest, shiny and clean, the kind of clean that sets his teeth on edge when he’s around it for too long, like the lone stain on an otherwise pristine carpet. The warehouse is a well-loved mess, just like his apartment. Just like him.

He finds Eli in the kitchen, sitting on the folding card table with his feet on the bar stool, picking at what looks like honey nut cheerios in a pool of orange soda. Teenagers are fucking weird.

(He’s aware that, as they’re all well into their twenties by now, Clint should really stop referring to them as _kids_  and _teenagers_. But when you meet someone as a lanky fifteen year old who still has a curfew, it’s hard to ever see them as more than that. Especially when they do shit like this.)

(He’s also aware that he shouldn’t be judging anyone else’s dietary habits, which is why he does it silently.)

“Hey, Clint,” Eli waves his spoon in greeting. Kate’s the only one who calls him Hawkeye. It’s weird for the rest of them; Kate was the only Hawkeye they knew for so long, and when they met him he had a different name, and everything only got more complicated when he picked up the bow again. 

Nobody ever talks about how weird superhero names can get, but they roll with it. Clint’s lost track of how many _Patriot Kid’s, M_ _iss America’s, Captain America’s,_ etc he’s met–and it doesn’t help that they all wear the same colors. At this point he just sticks to gender-neutral nods and grunts, and if they think he’s rude, so be it. Better than misgendering someone, or fucking up their name.

“Morning kid,” Clint says, gruff. It’s nearing noon and he still doesn’t have a drop of caffeine in him, and death is seeming like a real possibility with every passing second. “Got any of the good stuff?”

Eli raises a brow, an expert at that by now. He may still eat soda-coated cereal, but he’s the closest thing to an authority figure that the Young Avengers have. He’s no Captain America, but he’s well on his way, albeit _much_  much younger, and browner, and with more overall snark. 

Which is, in Clint’s opinion, an overall improvement. He thinks the world could do with a little more snark.

“I’m assuming you mean _coffee_?” At Clint’s affirming grunt, he shakes his head with a sigh. “You Hawkeye’s and your caffeine. In the top-left corner,” he nods at the plywood cupboard above the fridge, and Clint digs out the tin filled with grounds. It’s the good kind, too, which means Kate must have brought it.

Clint feels a smile bloom on his face, and hears Eli sigh again. “We’ve all got our vices,” Clint eyes the bowl of sugar-soggy o’s pointedly, and pulls an age-stained mug from the shelf.

Kate chooses that moment to appear, like the mere mention of coffee summoned her. 

“Hawkeye,” she smirks–he likes to think she picked that up from him, but he knows she’s just a natural Hawkeye gift. “You testing our security again?”

Clint snorts. “That would imply you _have_  any security, which you don’t.” He spoons the grounds into the machine, adding extra in case she wants some. “You know, at the Tower–”

Kate rolls her eyes and maybe it’s a glitch in his hearing aid, but he could _swear_  he hears them rattling in her head. “Here we go.”

“I’m just saying,” Clint says, and he’s holding the steaming carafe, just about to poor his first precious cup, when the hiss of a bullet whistles through the air and shatters the glass. Coffee spills everywhere, along with orange soda as in one fluid motion Eli jumps down and flips the table, creating a makeshift barricade.

Clint looks at the puddle of coffee on the floor in muted despair. “What the fuck.”

“What the fuck, Clint,” Kate echoes, snatching at his arm and yanking him down behind the upturned table.

“I’m just saying, _this_  never happens at the Tower,” he hisses, and she swats his shoulder with a scowl.

“Focus!” Eli snaps, and it’s all business from there. 

The shooter is alone; a thug with delusions of grandeur, dreams of supervillainy, but ultimately untrained and out-manned. America takes him out with a single well-aimed kick to the chest, and Clint couldn’t be prouder.

By the time they get the wannabe Kingpin taken care of and the warehouse cleaned, the sun is starting to set over the city.

Kate leans back against the counter beside Clint with a sigh, rolling her shoulders, the sign of a good day’s work. “Up for a late lunch-slash-early dinner?”

Clint aims a raised brow her way. “No plans? A team dinner to celebrate not getting shot? Hot date?” He knows she and Eli had a– _thing_ , a few weeks ago. He wouldn’t be surprised if that was still going on. 

Kate isn’t looking at him, which seems pointed, but he doesn’t push. “America said something about trying to make soup, but honestly I don’t trust her to not fill it with a bunch of weird crazy spices just to fuck with us. And I do have plans. Fancy falafels, remember? Don’t tell me you’re gonna bail.”

Clint manages to bite back a tired smile, but it’s a near thing. He still hasn’t had any coffee, and it’s late enough that by now it won’t matter, which means he’s going to be double-fucked in the morning. But honestly? Fancy falafels sound perfect.

He finishes up the last of the dishes and dries his hands on his jeans. “How can I say no to fancy falafels?”

In the end, Kate springs for fancy falafels _and_  coffee. Clint takes the to-go cup with a heavy sigh of _finally_. He doesn’t even care that it’s burning his hands through the thin cardboard. 

“For tomorrow,” she adds, putting an extra cup of grounds by his coffee maker, before she settles in next to him on the couch. The dog whines until they help him up so he can squish uncomfortably between them, the needy bastard.

“ _Oh_ , SVU is on,” Kate says around a mouthful of falafel, switching the channel. “Sound good?”

Clint’s eyes are closed, and he can feel himself already drifting off, but he hums anyway, so satisfied he doesn't really know what to do with it. “Sounds perfect.”


End file.
